


Claw My Way Out

by smileybagel



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Depression, Gen, Ghosts, Hurt No Comfort, Male-Female Friendship, Mental Illness, Post Operation Pitfall, The Anteverse Fucks Shit Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-08
Updated: 2013-11-08
Packaged: 2017-12-31 20:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1036088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smileybagel/pseuds/smileybagel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raleigh sees him one night as he lays down to try to sleep, his bunk cold and uncomfortable. It's more of a wisp of light in the shape of him that disappears as quickly as it appeared, but Raleigh sees it (even if it's out of the corner of his eye) and it keeps sleep from him. </p><p>au in which raleigh returns from the breach a changed man, told from his pov. companion piece to Drag Me to the Surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Claw My Way Out

Raleigh sees him one night as he lays down to try to sleep, his bunk cold and uncomfortable. It's more of a wisp of light in the shape of him that disappears as quickly as it appeared, but Raleigh sees it (even if it's out of the corner of his eye) and it keeps sleep from him.

The next night, after Mako pesters him to drink his milk and eat his vegetables at dinner and after he grumbles about her being too motherly, when he's walking back to his room, Raleigh sees him again. Just around the corner, the wisp flutters away and Raleigh is helpless to follow, his feet silent on the floor as he slowly walks, as if going fast would scare away whatever it is. He rounds the corner and sees the wisp turn and _it's Yancy and-_

Then it's gone and Raleigh feels like Knifehead just took his brother from him all over again.

He doesn't sleep that night, or the next, or the one after that. He spends his nights chasing the wisp, the shadow, the illusion, whatever the fuck it is. He doesn't run, he doesn't sprint after it. Raleigh just follows its trail, never realizing that he's taken to chanting Yancy's name as he does so. Something is dangling the image of his brother in front of him like a carrot on a stick and he plans to find out what.

At some point, Raleigh sees it during the day, too. It flits around passing PPDC members and around old scrap metal and boxes. It disappears in the lunch crowd and reappears in the Kwoon. Raleigh focuses on following it so much that he forgets to eat for a whole day. The next day is no different. Eventually, his stomach stops hurting and he thinks that as long as he drinks some water from the bathroom tap in between searches, he'll be fine. He showers when he thinks he needs to, letting the water rush over him without really feeling it. Raleigh works on autopilot to clean himself, then dresses and steps out of his room to continue searching.

When Mako takes over half his room and the begins to crawl into bed with him, Raleigh doesn't mind. But then she starts holding him down when he tries to get up and he gets angry because _you've been in my mind mako you should understand how i much need yancy, how much we need him, let me go find him, for us, please_. But he doesn't yell, doesn't push her away. He does perk up when she realizes he'll never stop, so he takes her hand and walks the halls with her, happy to have company and help in his search. Raleigh lets her sleep when he sees the dark bags under her eyes and sneaks out some nights because he doesn't want to wake her, but once he's out of the room, his thoughts of Mako disappear and then it's blue and white and bright stars in a world so different than their own.

Raleigh thinks it's beautiful, familiar, and sees Yancy dance around the corner.

Raleigh eats because it makes Mako happy, though he thinks it's a waste of time now. There are voices telling him that he's so close, _so close_ to finding his brother, just a little longer, and they get angry when he sits to eat with Mako, with Herc, and with Tendo. He pushes them to the backround when he's with Mako, and they hiss in some dialect he doesn't understand or remember, so he shovels food in his mouth without thought and waits until the end of every meal to take Mako with him. They walk the Shatterdome, never getting lost because Raleigh has been sure to memorize every path and every secret cranny by now.

But then something, someone, snaps and Raleigh is left to figure out why and when did they get close to snapping? How? What happened? He watches Herc leave the mess but Mako's trembling frame catches his attention more ( _but not as much as the wisp that follows Herc out_ ) so he turns to her. His first feeling is more confusion, because he hasn't seen Mako cry since they closed the Breach. His second feeling is _love_ and _care_ as he whispers _Don't_ and presses his forehead against hers. He doesn't waste any more words because the one made his throat burn, as it wasn't used to the spoken word, only a barely whispered name.

_Don't cry, don't be sad, don't hurt._

_I don't know how to fix hurt._

Mako takes his hands and leaves their trays behind, so uncharacteristic of her, and they walk a path Raleigh knows but hasn't traveled in such a long time. Yancy's wisp never goes this way.

They climb the railings and rafters of Gipsy Danger's old hangar before sitting on the edge, their hands still intertwined. Raleigh is captured by the emptiness, thinking it's similar to the images in his mind. The lights of the Shatterdome remind him of the stars in the Breach and how they shine, life bursting from them like beacons calling him home. They remind him of the constellations Yancy used to point out to them from their Alaskan home, his finger leaving marks on the window and his breath fogging up the glass.

Mako forces his attention away and he fights the urge to snap his eyes back to the hangar and the lights, but Mako's eyes hold his. The color of them, the dark brown hue, makes him forget everything, and then he's thinking about the void after the Breach. The blissful void where Yancy is, where the voices told him Yancy is. So he forgets about Mako. He forgets about the small, warm hands holding his cheeks and the way they tremble. He breaks from hold, ignores the flash of hurt in her eyes, in her void, and looks at the lights again.

Raleigh thinks he can see a constellation or two in them and hear Yancy's voice in his ear, telling him their names and the myths that made them famous.

He can't wait to go home.


End file.
